Quicksilver @ EMPAC, 1//23/09

TROY The avant-garde doesn’t have to be big and loud. Weird things can come in small packages, sometimes also from centuries ago, as the early music ensemble Quicksilver proved Friday night at EMPAC. The program, “Stile Moderno: New Music from the 17th Century,” featured a team of six Baroque music specialists performing 13 quirky pieces by almost forgotten composers like Dario Castello, Tarquinio Merula and Antonio Bertali.

The surface of the music was usually dominated by two sweet violins and a warm trombone backed by a muffled mix of cello, therbo and harpsichord or organ. But within the architecture of most every piece there was something that either broke a rule that was not yet written in the 1600s, or that foreshadowed an innovation of another era. Occasionally the effect was extreme — like sitting politely through a long and pious church service only to be startled awake by some fleeting bits of heresy from the pulpit and then wondering if your ears had just deceived you.
The linear structure of the pieces often took a winding course, with perky and depressive strains sprinkled irregularly about. Melodies jumped to life out of nowhere. Trills lingered in the air at strange moments. There was plenty of tunefulness but themes were seldom developed in any traditional sense. Rather, new ideas were tossed about liberally, primarily in the material for the violins, played by Robert Mealy and Julie Andrijeski. It often felt conversation, like a rush of dialogue. There were monologues that wore on and interesting thoughts that got clipped off abruptly.

The first half ended with a sonata by Castello that felt like a succession of scenes, often comic in their antics. But then came a mournful descending cello line that rested on a long pedal tone. The subsequent material in the violins ended the piece as a tragedy.

The sameness of instrumental colors became a bit lulling after intermission, though relief came from two solos. Trombonist Greg Ingles played a bluesy solo that was only marred by the inconsistency of his tone. Such matters are always a curiosity with early music — are we hearing the limitations of the instrument or of the player?

Harpsichordist Avi Stein had the most outrageous piece of the evening, a solo toccata by Michelangelo Rossi. It alternated between lyric and choppy writing before a sweeping chromatic exploration ended the piece somewhere in the late 20th century.

Joseph Dalton is a local freelance writer who contributes regularly to the Times Union.